It's Usually The Smartest Employees Who Ruin A Company's Culture

Intelligence is obviously highly valued by employers. At the same
time, the brightest people can be among the most difficult to
manage. That difficulty is heightened if they're used to getting
exceptions and special treatment due to their high performance.

In
an interview with Adam Bryant at The New York Times, former
Tesco CEO Sir Terry Leahy described how he tried to create a
culture centered around good service and good manners. He
perfectly describes the sometimes negative impact the smartest
people can have on an organization:

"If I had to sum it up, it would be about being generous at work
rather than selfish. It is amazing how often you see people who
can’t help themselves — because of their ambition or their
insecurities or whatever — and that they’re basically selfish and
they take out rather than give.

For some people, that’s a transition that they have to make, and
not everybody can make it. Sometimes the brightest find
it the hardest to make that transition because they’ve always
been better than the people around them. They find it hard to
trust the people around them to do the work. They think, 'Well, I
know best.' When you see organizations that
struggle, it’s mainly that people can’t trust."

Sometimes the brightest people, whether it's their intention or
not, can be seen as trying to put themselves above everybody else
or advance at others' expense. Their colleagues feel
marginalized, which leads
to a culture that's less collaborative, less trusting, and
centered on individuals.

The challenge for managers is
to create an environment where people have enough in common that
they feel like they trust each other, and where the norm is
always respect. High performance or intelligence can't be grounds
for exceptions, or it doesn't end up working for
anybody.